A retired physician and current professor at Simon Fraser University isn’t spending the final month of his summer vacation relaxing on the beach.
Instead, 63-year-old Tim Takaro spent all of Tuesday, Aug. 4 mounted high up in the trees along the Brunette River in New Westminister to prevent Trans Mountain from cutting them down for its pipeline expansion.
“I didn’t expect to find myself living in a tree at 63 years of age,” Takaro said in a statement.
“I am a public health physician who has been studying and working on policy regarding the health impacts of climate change for nearly 30 years. This threat has compelled me to put my body on the line to prevent construction of this climate-killing project.”
Backed by the activist group Extinction Rebellion, Takaro’s protest comes days after the federal government signed an agreement permitting less environmental monitoring of the oilsands due to budget cuts amid the ongoing pandemic.
Trudeau’s government effectively purchased the Trans Mountain project in 2018.
The controversial project was approved for a second time in June 2019, after the Federal Court of Appeal tore up the original approval last year due to insufficient environmental review and inadequate Indigenous consultations.
Upon completion, the pipeline expansion is expected to triple the pipeline’s capacity to carry bitumen from Edmonton to Burnaby.
